The Nightmare Experience of a Useless Person

Liu Qiuchao was resolute about her escape from the Liu family that day; she would never regret it for the rest of her life.

Despite the hardships of the journey, Liu Qiuchao felt incredibly exhilarated. She was all alone in the world, free to spread her wings and soar high, gallop on horseback, and even pluck stars and grasp the moon—if she so desired, she could do so.

On the seventh day after leaving the Liu family, Liu Qiuchao crossed the third mountain, where she met a group of people.

There were seven women, each emaciated and frail. According to them, they had escaped from human slave traders. Each of them had been whipped until their skin was torn and oozing pus, and they had persistent high fevers; they were all on the verge of death.

Liu Qiuchao guessed that it wasn't that they had "escaped" at all, but rather that the slave traders, seeing that the people were about to die and unwilling to collect the bodies, wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible.

In the past, Liu Qiuchao had seen many patients at Liu's Pharmacy. Some had minor ailments such as fever from colds and sprains, while others suffered from incurable diseases such as tuberculosis with hemoptysis and stroke with hemiplegia. Human life was the most precious thing in the pharmacy. But today, Liu Qiuchao realized that in the world outside the pharmacy, there were many lives that were as worthless as grass.

Especially a woman's fate...

This feeling is awful, just like the arranged marriage itself, it's oppressive.

Liu Qiuchao's first patient was named Manniang. Not only were her symptoms the most severe, but she was also pregnant. The mother was weak, but the child was surprisingly strong, as if it would devour the last bit of life from the mother.

For Liu Qiuchao, saving lives was a matter of course. She rented a house in the remote mountains, gave them medicine, and provided them with a place to recuperate. This was the first time she had taken care of patients entirely on her own, and Liu Qiuchao was exceptionally cautious. But beneath that caution, there was also a hint of ecstasy, a ecstasy of being in control of the whole situation and of her destiny. She was certain that this was what she wanted.

She wanted to grow up as she had envisioned, to become the Liu Qiuchao she had always dreamed of being.

After more than a month, the women's skin and flesh were finally restored to a human shape. Although it will take several more months for the scars to completely disappear, their physical and mental health has recovered well. From being unable to move at the beginning to being able to move freely now, they have supported and cared for each other, and they are all sincerely grateful to this female bodhisattva who descended to earth.

Although we got along very well, parting was always inevitable.

As for where everyone would go, only Manniang had a certain fate. She hoped that the child in her womb would have a father, and she wanted to go back to find her relatives. The two youngest sisters clung to Liu Qiuchao's legs and cried incessantly. The other girls also refused to leave, saying that they had nowhere to go and wished to learn medicine from Lady Liu and follow her for the rest of their lives.

This was unexpected for Liu Qiuchao, but she was very satisfied. The feeling of being needed made her feel incredibly grounded, replacing the superficial glory brought by the surname Liu.

She no longer needed that name; she was willing to discard it and be completely freed from that glittering cage!

From then on, Liu Qiuchao changed his name and surname, using the name of Manniang, and led a group of disciples to find a new life.

……

"Liu Qiuchao, which autumn? Which dynasty?"

"Autumn with golden wind and jade dew, dawn with phoenix singing at sunrise."

"Autumn with golden wind and jade dew, morning with phoenix singing in the rising sun." Yu Qingjun silently repeated in her heart, what a good name, like a female eagle, soaring into the sky with ambition.

After the goddess's procession ended, Jiang Zhiyang secretly slipped away and returned to the courtyard where the hydrangeas were in full bloom.

Amidst the ruins, the hydrangea bushes bloomed more brilliantly than ever before. Jiang Zhiyang carefully dug away the soil; he wanted to take the flowers up the mountain, if Yu Qingjun still remembered, if she still remembered that wish for them to be happy and fulfilled together…

"I told you Liu Qiuchao's story to say that most women in this world cannot control their own destiny, but are Father and Mother necessarily wrong? Actually, no. I know that Father did it for my own good. If I marry a good man, I will live a much more comfortable life than ordinary women. Like ordinary women, I will put in the effort to please others, learn to handle household chores, and grow old in the midst of those chores, just like the happy and fulfilling life of a woman in the eyes of the world. So I don't blame him. It's just that this world is too narrow-minded and looks down on women too much." Manniang patted Nannan's head, as if comforting her, or perhaps comforting herself.

"It's the same in this poor, remote place. Young girls are too weak to work, and when they grow up, they marry into other families. So everyone only distributes land according to the number of male members. The more male members a family has, the more land they have, and the more harvest they get. Abandoning female infants and only wanting male members is because of a lack of conscience, and also because the world is hard and it's not easy to make a living. People are wrong, but the world is wrong, and the order is wrong."

Man Niang stopped. All of this was too profound and difficult to understand. Even she herself only saw many things clearly after she got older. She had never understood anything when she was young.

"Don't think too much, or your head will hurt." Man Niang helped Yu Qingjun up, repeatedly told her to rest, and then left.

Yu Qingjun leaned against the windowsill, her gaze fixed on the swaying branches, letting the breeze ruffle her long hair and help her organize her thoughts. She thought, "Manniang is truly wonderful; she holds her destiny in her own hands. I want to be like her too." And what about her? What kind of person did she want to be? She hoped to become someone who could bring happiness to everyone.

Jiang Zhiyang returned, bringing back mud with his hands and a whole hydrangea.

"Where did you get these!" The vibrant colors of the petals stirred up Yu Qingjun's previously low spirits, and her eyes welled up with tears—the kind of joy that Jiang Zhiyang was familiar with.

"From your home."

"My home?"

"Look at me closely, do you remember me?" Jiang Zhiyang took a soft, large steamed bun out of his pocket and stuffed it into Yu Qingjun's hand.

The girl's eyes darted hurriedly across Jiang Zhiyang's face, awakening some long-buried memories. Tears welled up in her eyes, and disbelief filled her gaze as she looked at him.

"Brother...brother?"

"It's me." Jiang Zhiyang was overjoyed and took a handkerchief to wipe away Yu Qingjun's tears.

"Didn't Man Niang say you were all gone? Where are Father and Mother?"

"..."

Jiang Zhiyang fell silent.

Yu Qingjun understood his silence.

"It's nothing..." she said, tears streaming down her face. "It's already so good that you're back, really."

Jiang Zhiyang bent down and hugged Yu Qingjun, his soft hands gently patting her back. The gap between them was broken, leaving only two hearts close to each other.

"No, why are you dressed like this?" Yu Qingjun pushed Jiang Zhiyang away, looked at his fitted dress, and burst into laughter through her tears.

"There's nothing we can do; men can't get up here either." Jiang Zhiyang stood up, turned around to show off his attire, which he had completely adapted to over the past few days.

"Yu Qingjun, I've made a huge sacrifice; you'll have to make it up to me later!"

"Yu Qingjun? Is that my name? I remember my father and mother didn't have time to name me yet."

Jiang Zhiyang had forgotten that from the first moment he saw her, he had assumed that this girl was Yu Qingjun. He didn't know her name at all, nor did he know his father's and mother's names, and he couldn't help but feel ashamed.

"Hmm." Jiang Zhiyang answered hesitantly, "Yes, it was Father... Father told me before he left."

He casually made up a lie.

"Which Qing dynasty? Which emperor?"

"Pure and immaculate, a true gentleman."

"It suits me perfectly!" She picked up a pen and copied two large characters on the paper—"Qingjun"—and then, as if she liked it so much, she kept repeating the two characters on the paper.

"Yu, Qing, Jun," she murmured.

In the days after they recognized each other, Yu Qingjun was in a good mood. When no one else was around, she shed her goddess persona and chattered away like a little sister to Jiang Zhiyang about her experiences over the years. Sometimes, if she wasn't satisfied, she would even wake him up in the middle of the night to chat.

Every moment spent with her was delightful; it was a secret that belonged only to the two of them.

From her description, Jiang Zhiyang roughly learned that after the fire, Man Niang adopted Yu Qingjun, and Qingjun simply prayed for the villagers, knowing nothing else.

Jiang Zhiyang always felt he couldn't quite figure out what was going on with Manniang. Manniang's affection for Qingjun was genuine, and Qingjun's dependence on Manniang was even more pronounced, but based solely on his intuition, Jiang Zhiyang still felt that Manniang was hiding something, and what she was hiding probably connected all the threads of the story, and was also the dark side she didn't want to show anyone.